CHICAGO RIDGE, IL -- Dennis Keehan's check arrives in the mail every month, the number one with three neat figures following in comforting solidity. It is a stipend that makes things easier, and here in a modest apartment in this suburb of the city, the former jockey says its' support keeps him going in more ways than one.
Keehan was only 21 in 1964 when a four-horse spill at Sportsman's Park left him a paraplegic -- his spinal cord, as he describes it, "smashed to hell." Thrown from his mount when the horse clipped heels going into a turn, he landed in the center of the track and was trampled by the runners behind him. Nine months into a career headed for brilliance, the second-leading rider at Laurel and second apprentice in the national standings, he never rode again.
Now 64, the Chicago native has received Medicare benefits and this check, $1,000 from the Permanently Disabled Jockeys Fund (PDJF) since the organization was established in 2006. That's a significant jump from the $100 per month he was receiving from the Jockeys' Guild 45 years ago, and a 50% increase over what he was paid as recently as 2005.
He is one of approximately 60 recipients aided by the Fund, people whose lives have been tragically altered by the profession they chose. After his accident he spent several years away from the industry, honing his skills as a billiards player and competing in tournaments across the country. Still, his ties to the industry remain undeniably strong; in recent years he has attended PDJF fundraisers and, to support the organization, he would do anything.
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The dangers of race riding are well-documented, spelled out in the lives and histories of this sport's former athletes. Young jockeys who pursue horse racing as a career are conditioned to the potential consequences, know what they're getting themselves into. But that doesn't soften the harsh reality, doesn't ease the shattering pain when you lose a gamble you've chosen to make, find yourself another statistic of a documented risk.
"If you go into this sport, you aren't fooling anybody," Keehan said. "Sure, you put it in the back of your mind -- you still know it; you're either going to get dead or break bones. But paralysis? Living like this for the rest of your life? You don't think about that. You can't think about that."
Jack Fires wasn't thinking about it at River Downs on the morning of May 17, 1977, when the horse he was riding broke down and rolled over on top of him during training hours. A resident of Rivervale, Ark., he was five years into a career that had its' share of ups and downs -- but he was living out his only dream. In his first moments as a paraplegic, he remembers lying on the track and asking where his legs were, feeling as if they were folded up into his chest like an accordion. Like Keehan, he was 21.
Now a member of the PDJF board, 54-year-old Fires understands the difficulties of living with a disability. He also understands the immeasurable benefits of the Fund, as a recipient with a wife and two daughters to support.
"It helps financially, especially with everything being as high as it is now -- gas, doctor bills, first one thing, then another," he said. "When you're injured it's not like you can go to Wal-Mart and buy your medical supplies. You get those things at medical stores. Or think about being in a wheelchair. If you drive, like most of those guys do with hand controls, you have to buy a vehicle that is accessible to you, a van or something with a lift all of that stuff is pretty expensive, even with Medicare."
That's the reality faced by all of the permanently disabled jockeys, including 49-year-old Remi Gunn, a mother of four who became a paraplegic in 2003 after her spinal cord was severed in a racing accident at Ellis Park. Now living just north of Ocala, Fla., Gunn operates a small training center. Two of her four children still live at home.
"I went from a pretty decent income to no income at all," she said.
Gunn credits PDJF President Nancy LaSalla with much of the positive impact that the organization has had on her life. LaSalla, she said, had a lot to do with the Ellis Park matching donation, when jockeys held a fundraiser and the track put up an equal amount of money to help with her initial medical expenses.
"She's like a catalyst for getting people in line," Gunn remarked. "It doesn't just happen, she makes it happen."
LaSalla is reticent about her position and the involvement that she and her husband, Jockeys' Guild treasurer Jerry LaSalla, have had in the organization, but there's no denying the passion they both share for helping the disabled riders -- and the integrity with which they've conducted their efforts on behalf of the Fund. The same can be said for the other members of the board; representatives from the National Thoroughbred Racing Association, the National Horsemen's Benevolent and Protective Association, and various racetracks. Knowing the stories of riders like Keehan, Fires, and Gunn, everyone involved is motivated to go above and beyond the call of duty.
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Historically, jockeys have always taken care of their own. They donate mount fees, "pass the hat" in the room for fallen comrades, autograph boots and saddles and silks for fundraisers and auctions. Such fundraisers and private donations still provide the majority of support for the PDJF, but moving into the future, board members are working to establish an endowment that would secure the organization and provide a guaranteed stream of revenue for the riders.
"If we can do that, these men and women will be guaranteed an income not based on 'did we earn enough money this year?' but based on the knowledge that the funds are there," Nancy LaSalla said.
A previously existing fund, the Disabled Jockeys Endowment, was founded in 2002 with seed money from the Jockeys' Guild and private donors. Now the PDJF is in talks with that organization's board members and "working very cooperatively," said LaSalla, to merge the Disabled Jockeys Endowment's approximately $2 million and the Permanently Disabled Jockeys Fund into one.
"The Fund keeps growing all the time but I tell people to keep donating to it until we get the endowment to where it sustains itself," Fires said.
One of the Board's biggest concerns has been that the disabled jockeys afford the ongoing medical care necessary for their comfort. Keehan, for instance, underwent extensive surgery in 2006 to receive skin grafts after developing sores from his constant position in the wheelchair.
"They shouldn't have to cut corners on their medical treatment," LaSalla said. "It's important for them to maintain their healthy living cycle."
This concept, and the belief that the industry should take care of those who have given so much, have been the driving factors behind the organization's success to date. The Fund obviously has the full cooperation of the Jockeys' Guild -- as Guild Chairman John Velazquez said, "we all realize this can happen any time, to anybody, not just at the small tracks and claiming races, but to all of us who make our living in this sport" -- and corporations such as Churchill Downs Incorporate, Magna Entertainment, the New York Racing Association and others have come to embrace its' cause.
As a result, unity has been achieved at a level never seen before in the racing industry. In 2008, for the first time in history, all riders in the field for each of the Triple Crown races were sponsored by NetJets, and an agreement forged between riders and owners that allowed a percentage of the sponsorship to go to the PDJF and various other charities.
"That's the one thing that amazed me since I've been on the board," Fires said. "The way people have come together on this, from horsemen to owners to jockeys to track management, has been phenomenal. I was injured 30 years ago and there are still people that care? That's been the biggest thing for me."
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The conclusion that these disabled riders are just that -- disabled, but still riders at heart -- is quickly reached by a few moments spent in conversation. Reviewing flickering films of Dennis Keehan's earliest races. Discovering Remi Gunn's enjoyment of the horses that gallop past her window every morning. Speaking to Jack Fires. And it should come as no surprise that each still plays a part in the industry in their own way. Racing is in their blood.
"That's the way it is with anybody that's riding, it's in your blood and you care for it," Fires said. "Growing up, that's all I wanted to be. I just wanted to be a jockey."
Claire Novak is an award-winning journalist whose coverage of the thoroughbred industry appears in a variety of outlets, including The Blood-Horse Magazine, The Albany Times Union and NTRA.com. She lives in Lexington, Ky.